ERIKS official partner Delft University for Hyperloop

ERIKS officially partnered with the Hyperloop team of the Delft University of Technology on the creation of their latest Hyperloop Pod.

We are proud of the Delft Hyperloop team for coming in 2nd place at the 2018 SpaceX Hyperloop competition, held at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Many skilled ERIKS Sealing and Polymer colleagues contributed to this success by working closely with the Delft team in developing rubber components for the pod’s tire.

About Hyperloop

Hyperloop is a high-speed transportation system that uses reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized vehicles, or ‘Pods’, travel. Due to low air resistance in the tubes, the Pods can travel near to the speed of sound while being more energy efficient, environmentally friendly, convenient and less expensive than airplanes.

In 2017, the TU Delft team won the first international Hyperloop competition that was initiated by SpaceX/Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Today, a new team of 30 highly motivated technical students is preparing for an equally successful competition in 2018. And ERIKS is part of their journey, as we support the team with our know-how and expertise, particularly in the field of power transmission and Sealing & Polymer.

Engineers in heart and soul

Connecting with the Delft University of Technology is sharing passion for technology. ERIKS’ experts helped design some of the pod’s most critical parts, a tough process that’s about making tough choices: selection of the motor, materials for the tires and several pneumatic parts for the brakes.

Trusted partner

We also connected the Hyperloop team with some of our trusted partners, such as rubber experts ERT who supported the team with the selection and production of the rubber for the pod’s tire.

We worked together on constructing parts. This included a “world’s first” process: vulcanizing the rubber on the rim of the high-speed traction wheel, with the ERIKS Rubbertechnology team. See the video below for more information about this collaboration.